ord; and after they had begun to linger there they could have
smiled (if they hadn't been really too serious, and if the question
hadn't so soon ceased to matter), over the probable wonder of the others
as to what would have become of them.

The extent to which they enjoyed their indifference to any judgment of
their want of ceremony, what did that of itself speak but for the way
that, as a rule, they almost equally had others on their mind? They each
knew that both were full of the superstition of not "hurting," but might
precisely have been asking themselves, asking in fact each other, at
this moment, whether that was to be, after all, the last word of their
conscientious development. Certain it was, at all events, that,
in addition to the Assinghams and the Lutches and Mrs. Rance, the
attendance at tea, just in the right place on the west terrace, might
perfectly comprise the four or five persons--among them the very
pretty, the typically Irish Miss Maddock, vaunted, announced and now
brought--from the couple of other houses near enough, one of these the
minor residence Of their proprietor, established, thriftily, while he
hired out his ancestral home, within sight and sense of his profit.
It was not less certain, either, that, for once in a way, the group in
question must all take the case as they found it. Fanny Assingham, at
any time, for that matter, might perfectly be trusted to see Mr. Verver
and his daughter, to see their reputation for a decent friendliness,
through any momentary danger; might be trusted even to carry off their
absence for Amerigo, for Amerigo's possible funny Italian anxiety;
Amerigo always being, as the Princess was well aware, conveniently
amenable to this friend's explanations, beguilements, reassurances,
and perhaps in fact rather more than less dependent on them as his new
life--since that was his own name for it--opened out. It was no secret
to Maggie--it was indeed positively a public joke for her--that she
couldn't explain as Mrs. Assingham did, and that, the Prince liking
explanations, liking them almost as if he collected them, in the manner
of book-plates or postage-stamps, for themselves, his requisition
of this luxury had to be met. He didn't seem to want them as yet for
use--rather for ornament and amusement, innocent amusement of the
kind he most fancied and that was so characteristic of his blessed,
beautiful, general, slightly indolent lack of more dissipated, or even
just o